Played

Chord Traffic…

Broken Chord Listeners

Subscribe to The Job Hater’s Journal

People from advanced countries take for granted the fact that they can easily buy a house. People from my country, the Philippines, have to rely on the somewhat incompetent housing loan system – even wh

en this is a government institute under Mr. Vice President himself! Those who can really afford to buy a parcel of lot then build a house on cash are of course not going to agree with me but for us who can’t afford, then this is our plight.

I just found this sort-of dream lot near my parent’s (and parents-in-law) house. It is about 691 square meters – and located right beside the road. It’s worth only about Php 795 per sq m or about Php 550,000 in all. Now, that is a good deal considering that most undeveloped lots located near the road sell at about Php 2,000 per sq m.

Bobby and I have some cash from savings and donations (Uncle Dogbert?) but it is still not enough to cover that amount {sigh, can someone grant me a loan, please?}. I am crossing my fingers that by the time that we do have that cash, the lot is still for sale 😀

Anyway, I was glad that the government has this housing loan system they call PAG-IBIG which grants housing loans to people like us in the working class. With big hopes, we attended the seminar last November 27 (of 2008). We had to fill out a Member Status Verification Slip (or something like that) so that they can verify if we are eligible to obtain a loan. That is just the very first step which will determine if we can proceed to transacting with the lot seller. This also means that the loan process has not commenced yet – we have to wait for that MSVS. We were told that it would take them 1 or 2 weeks to process that and inform us if we are eligible for the loan.

After two weeks, I called up the office and was informed that they were on an “offline” mode and were not able to process the MSVS. Every Thursday after that, I would call the office in the afternoon just for sure – the answer is always the same: “Sorry, Ma’am, but we are still waiting for the papers to arrive. We are still on offline mode.” And to think that the country’s vice president (Noli de Castro) has been showing ads on TV about that governent office being the answer to housing problems in the country or something similar to that!

So, somewhat impatiently (but I have no choice, right?), I call the office at 4 o’clock on Thursdays – without fail. It’s more than two months since we last attended the seminar. Maybe they had been wrong about the verification process being done after 2 weeks – maybe they meant two years!

Can someone give me a loan now? 😀 If only it’s as easy as that, huh? Let’s just say that I would still need about Php 300,000 right now. Hmm, maybe I should try a “Piso Para sa Bahay” kind of fund raising? 😀 If only the government can improve the housing loan system – I’d have that lot soon {sigh}.